Give and Take
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: How did Sam learn Ruby's ruby-red boosted his power given the how/when/why is never revealed in S4? This is my take on it; this is a one-shot standalone; it refers to my story Having A Ball, but you don't need to read that to read this; Sam/Ruby.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**Note:** This story ties in with my story **_Having a Ball_** (particularly Chapters 18 and 22), but is stand-alone – you don't have to read that to follow this, and you don't have to read this to read that, etc. However, I suggest that BEFORE reading _this _one-shot, you read the **Author's Note** at the bottom of this page.

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 1**

Oh…_ack_…Ruby just managed to _not _gag in disgust as Ted Piven's sly hand slid under the hem of her skirt and found the edge of her stocking top, his already gross leer becoming positive repulsive as he rubbed that small gap of bare thigh between her panties and the top of her stocking.

Did he _seriously_ think she'd worn them for his benefit? Oh, next stop Barf City…she wore stockings a) because pantyhose hadn't been invented back when she was alive and human and b) because pantyhose were an instrument of torture – restrictive, constrictive, itchy, bothersome, overheating and damn it no matter how careful a gal was, one leg always ended up laddered just after you'd finally managed to pull them on and get something like comfortable…Unlike the wimpy, put-up-with-it modern women who had been made soft and flabby and meek by a couple of generations of too many labour-saving and plug-n-play inventions for 'convenience' – although okay, steam shower, yes, waterproof make-up, yes, and vibrator – oh yes – but _other _than that, if pantyhose _had _been invented back in Ruby's day, women would have done the sensible thing and strung the inventor up from the nearest tree-branch with a pair of the damn things…

Speaking of which, she could pull over and – no. Bad, bad, bad. _I will not snap the neck of this lecherous a-hole with only the power of my mind, I will not snap…_

And now they were hitting traffic bunching too, which made Piven the Skeevy's fingers start working overtime, apparently oblivious that her goose bumps were due to being grossed out, not turned on. Piven's fingers were…perfectly manicured and pink, perfectly smooth and soft…like a jelly donut being mashed into her leg…_yuk!_ A man's hands should be…Not bony or meaty, but firm; not grime-caked or jagged fingernails but just neat and clean rather than cuticles more pampered than Paris Hilton. They should be muscular and flexible, not fat and squishy, they should be strong, decisive hands_,_ they should have a callous or two, maybe a little nick here and there, the hands of a man who could briskly change a car tyre, competently fix the leaking pipe under the sink and deftly slide those fingers inside a woman's secret place, and stroke and tease…

_No, Ruby! _She lectured herself. _You cannot yank his intestines out from his mouth in the middle of traffic in front of a score witnesses. Be the bigger person, take the moral high ground…_

Besides, it was her own fault; this job had been jacked from the start – one of those where you know it's all going to go wrong from the moment you get out of bed and stub your toe on a bit of furniture that wasn't in the way the night before. Instead of listening to her own experience she'd persevered at the chance to take out one of her chief tormentors – Celestine fawned over Lillith like a damn poodle and had always had it in for Ruby. Oh how she would have loved to have sent the whining bitch back to the pit…but Celestine had long gone, if she'd ever been here, and the small-time imp that had been disporting itself had also apparently cleared out of Dodge.

A day spent in the increasingly obnoxious company of Ted Piven pretending her coy flirting was gonna end up with him getting laid, in the confines of this small car in this late summer heat had been about as much fun as the recurring plague outbreaks had been back in the day, and after she ditched Octopussy here she was still going to have to pull off an epic drive to get back to Pukesville, Illinois, also known as Pontiac, where Mr Petulant 2008 would no doubt be sulking and start trying to pick a fight the moment she stepped out of the car…

Not that that could be _helped_. It was about time Sam Winchester was kicked up the ass and told to get over his pity party. So he was locked into a spiral of devastating grief, fuelled by too much booze that he used to sublimate his real, unquenchable thirst – for revenge on Lillith. He wasn't the first, he wouldn't be the last; she of all…beings…knew that.

_And so far all he's done is throw temper tantrums at me about it…_Skilfully she took advantage of a gap to glide onto the off ramp back towards her motel, trying not to look at Piven's gross face as he practically drooled, his mind clearly already ahead on what he fondly imagined would be the outcome of their arrival.

Nope, it was definitely time to lay the tough love smackdown on Sammy. She had been far more tolerant than anyone could reasonably expect. Sam's sexual ferocity hadn't been a surprise that night – she had seduced him in full knowledge of how on the edge of control he was, though it wasn't a decision taken lightly.

There had been no other option – for all he'd laid off the Scotch, his abilities had been stifled and suppressed by his grief for Dean, his rage at himself for failing to save Dean, his rage at Dean for making the damn deal in the first place, his self-loathing for being angry at the brother he adored, his self-hatred for using his powers, something which Dean would not have approved of, and his despair at the knowledge of what Dean would eventually become as his humanity was burned away in the basement.

A wicked devil's brew of traumatic emotion topped off with a surprise ingredient of a dollop of basic lust, aimed at Ruby, which had taken her off-guard at first. She'd seen a faint hint of it back when she'd been blonder and shorter, but had dismissed it as a reflex action based on the fact that Sam's beloved Jessica Lee Moore had been a pert, nubile blonde girly, just like Dean's 'type' of babes with long chocolate tresses and dark velvet eyes were sublimations of that woman…Cindy? Lindy? Lara? Lisa? Whatever…in Indiana he'd really been wanting to get it on with for years.

_But because Sam's a guy…he had to complicate the issue…and men are supposed to be able to separate sex from intimacy into a purely physical function…half the time they're more 'emo' about it than any female I've encountered…_which, okay, wasn't entirely fair but she was faintly embarrassed it had taken her so long to get a clue after she'd occasionally she caught a glimpse of Sam's reflection in some mirrored surface and saw that he was staring at her rack, or her ass, at the juncture of her body between her legs with the expression of a starving junkyard dog having a raw sirloin steak dangled in front of it.

_I handled it, I handled it with style and class and I gave him some leeway because I understand how lust and grief and despair can all boil up inside you until it comes spurting and spattering out, scalding whoever is in range…_and Sam was still throwing his rattle out of the pram every five minutes. The second time, when he'd just grabbed her and rutted like an animal, she'd tolerated and forgiven…that time in the forest when he'd forced her to the ground and done the same…she was not Sam Winchester's personal sex toy, nor was she some bizarre sex-therapist-come-grief-counsellor. Her aim was to keep him alive long enough to have a realistic chance of taking out Lillith, and to train him to be able to fight the big beasts Lillith would unleash after them. And what had his response been so far – to dash off half-cocked like a headless chicken – after slamming her against a wall and putting _that knife _against her favourite jugular – nearly getting himself and an innocent little girl, not to mention Ruby herself, slaughtered in the process. If she hadn't gone after his inept ass he'd have been shish-kebabed in a flat second.

_And what did I get afterwards. Nothing but more attitude_…

And she couldn't afford to indulge him any longer. This busted hunt was proof of that. Some days Ruby longed for those uncomplicated, straightforward days of being a hunter, alone, just her and her knife, batting her eyelashes at some egomaniac hell-fiend who was so busy patting her on the head it never saw the knife that killed it. But nothing stayed the same…_But one thing that needs to is my hunting practice_…there was no doubt about it, she was getting rusty. She'd spent too much time last year running around pulling Dean and Sam's admittedly delectable asses out of the fire and getting them on the various clue buses instead of taking care of business as she should…

_And it cost the life of the best host I've ever had…damn, I miss you, Kitty-Kat_. That's what her friends had called her, that beautiful, bright, brave blonde gal who had looked in the mirror at Ruby's inky black gaze looking back at her and laughed inside her head and challenged her to 'bring it on'. She'd paid the price for Ruby's distraction, for Ruby getting complacent about being able to pick up a hunt and drop it again on a whim, for her hubris in thinking that because she possessed the host, she couldn't be forced out unless she wanted to leave...

Not this time. This time Ruby was going to stay in shape – honed and toned, no letting things slide because she had a giant baby on her hands who screamed the place down if she left him alone for more than one damn minute…this host was too good to lose…no inhabitant, no girl to engage with, no girl to actually start to feel for, no girl to grieve for.

No, Mr High and Mighty Winchester, he had no idea what it was like to grab desperately as the soul of your host flickered and faded, that precious life ebbing away no matter how you tried to drive away the reapers. At least this time she wouldn't have to go through that, if anything happened to this meat suit…_and I'm taking good care of it…mostly_, she sent the thought despite not being entirely convinced it had gone any further than the sun visor of the car roof, or that there was any…entity…interested enough to care. After all, when a girl as attractive as what had looked back at Ruby in the mirror ended up as Jane Doe Coma Girl without any of the usual caveats – needle marks on the arms, booze addled liver, biker tattoos – it was not likely anyone would be missing her.

So, quick revision of the To Do List – ditch Piven, pull off Heart's 'I drove all night/To get to you' and brace for impact when she lay down the New Law to her boy. and by the time she arrived back Ponty, he'd have had a day and a night to stew and do the patented Sam Winchester brooding over the way she'd sent him packing with an entire flea circus in his ear…

Continued in Chapter 2…

© 2009

The Cat's Whiskers

**Author's Note:** In Season 4, it has never been explained **when** or **how** or **why** Sam first got a yen for the ruby red – or Ruby's red – to be precise. Given Sam's previous personality traits in Seasons 1-3 and his obvious battle against himself in the flashback scene in _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ before he gave in to what he wanted and had sex with Ruby, it occurred to me that it was probably accidental when Sam first tasted Ruby's blood – I hardly saw him deciding on a whim, apropos of nothing, to ask her to slice open an artery just to see what it tasted like. Particularly since Ruby was never enthusiastic in the episodes that imply or even show the drinking – she's certainly up for the sex, but it always seems to be Sam who instigates/asks for the haemoglobin as a side order (particularly as his addiction to it takes hold later on in Season 4).

'Accidental' got me _how_, which led me to thinking of _why_ and _when_. Again, given Sam's personality, I guessed it would be something done in 'the heat of the moment', something that occurred when Sam was in the middle of some extreme or powerful emotional experience – great rage, deep joy, extreme lust, terrible grief – or a combination of several intense feelings that made him irrational and not thinking clearly – or at all; which took care of _why_.

The when was a little bit trickier. By the episode '_Criss Angel_…' the audience knows what Ruby and Sam's obliquely-worded little spat is about. He has stopped, temporarily, she knows he won't be strong enough to keep sucking out demons like a vacuum cleaner for much longer without her blood – but the episodes before that are a little coy about it.

However, just before the confrontation between Sam and Dean in the opening scenes of _Metamorphosis _Sam happily tells Ruby, 'no more headaches'. We can infer from this that he had probably recently started the Ruby-juice drinking. Logically, the 'when' could only have been some time during those four months that Dean was dead – remember, as far as Sam knew (and Ruby for that matter) his brother was lost to him _forever_. He had no hope left of rescuing Dean, and from his perspective, nothing left to lose in his quest to 'gank' Lillith before killing himself, probably why he also cut off contact with Bobby.

In the "timeline" of the show, Dean was killed in May and resurrected on 18th September, and Ruby seduced Sam in late July or probably early August, because enough time had to pass from mid-May when both a) Sam was still trying every opportunity to rescue Dean to when he went sinking into drunken despair and not caring and b) for Ruby to be tortured by Lillith in hell and trick her into releasing her for 'one last chance' – that would be about late June 08 or the beginning of July.

From the beginning of July, Ruby and Sam also had to work together on his powers for a few weeks at least before they got to the point where Sam was actively fighting his own lust for Ruby sufficiently for her to be able to seduce him in the first place – say from early July to early August, and Ruby seduced Sam about the first or second week of August.

That fit to me because their sexual relationship had to have been going on for enough weeks to be 'routine' by 18th-19th September for that scene in _Lazarus Rising - _where Dean and Bobby knock on the motel room door and Ruby answers in just a vest and panties, expecting pizza delivery, and clearly sharing one room and one bed with Sam, who is completely casual about her undressed state, so say 5 or 6 weeks from early August to 20th September - the third week or end half of that month.

(NB - It did throw me when she didn't appear to recognise Dean or Bobby despite being familiar with both of them as blonde Ruby (Katie Cassidy) and also when Sam called her Cathy and she corrected 'it's Chrissy' as she hurriedly left – it seemed to be a jarring continuity error given that the storyline of _I Know What You Did Last Summer, _which was episode 9, all supposedly pre-dated 18th September and the events of _Lazarus Rising_ (the season premiere)…Unless of course you work on the assumption that Ruby was quick- witted enough to _hide _her identity when she opened the door and clapped eyes on Dean, and that she clued Sam into the need for deception when she deliberately asked, 'are you two _together_?', since Sam knew she _was_ Ruby and also knew _she_ knew perfectly well who Dean and Bobby actually were. Since Sam equally didn't want to admit - five minutes into welcoming back his resurrected brother - that the hot gal-pal standing a foot away was actually their old 'frenemy' Ruby in a new body, he deliberately played along by calling her a fake name ('Cathy') that she ran with by correcting him (it's Chrissy) like she was just a one-night stand. That presumption nicely turns 'continuity error' into deliberate and rather neat 'plot device', so I'm sticking with it).

The one final thing I will say is that if you cannot stand the character of Ruby no matter which actress plays her, then this is probably not the story for you. I know that there are some fans of the show who have been pre-emptively vociferously opposed to any introduction of recurring female characters into the show, and it is unfortunate that with Jo Harvelle, the first attempt, it didn't work. Dean was 27 to Jo's 18 and there are ways of describing a grown man of approaching 30 lusting after a girl – not a woman – barely out of high school; happily neither Alona Tal nor Jensen Ackles ever went that route. The character would have worked well as an 'honorary little sister' role, which was what they changed direction and made it into.

But having met Alona Tal and found her to be funny, friendly, kind, bright and professional in the face of what can only be described as mean-spirited and childishly spiteful attacks (as with Genevieve Cortese), I found myself apologising because I was rather ashamed to admit I was a female Supernatural fan when I'd read some of the silliness out there – Supernatural is a wonderful TV show, but still a TV show, not researching to find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease.

Given that female characters played by women such as Megalyn Echikunwoke, Katie Cassidy, Laura Cohen, Julie McNiven, Cindy Sampson, Emmanuelle Vaugier, and Genevieve Cortese are the catalysts that enable us to periodically see our boys at least partly in the yummy buff, surely they can be tolerated or even useful for facilitating that? I am also a writer, and much as I dislike some things about the show's mythology (indeed all my favourite shows), I want the show's storyline to _progress_, and the characters to develop in meaningful and satisfying ways if I'm going to continue giving an hour of my week to this show – doesn't sound much, but if Supernatural lasts five seasons, then I will have spent almost a week of my life watching this show, time I can never get back – never mind time spent reading fan fiction and browsing sites like , etc.

In line with that, Supernatural is not like Prison Break, where the brothers are separated for considerable periods and can therefore each do the 'expo' (i.e., explaining to the audience) when they meet up again. Sam and Dean are rarely apart from each other for very long, and therefore you need some recurring characters who have some familiarity with what's going on to be the _'deus ex machina'_ that allows the plot to develop without having to come up with some convoluted way of explaining to the audience what's going on because Sam and Dean, having been together for the denouement, are supposed to already know without going over it with each other.

Both Katie Cassidy and more so Genevieve Cortese, who has had to put up with a lot of vicious and quite uncalled for malice from some quarters, has done huge and sterling work in moving the storyline along in Season 4 and yet all she gets is hostility – and quite frankly, some of the vitriol poured out against Laura Cohen, Katie Cassidy and Genevieve Cortese in particular as well as Alona Tal before them has been scarily almost unhinged – I feel embarrassed to be a _female _fan of Supernatural sometimes; it's a great TV show, yes, but we all had lives that weren't empty of 'fandoms' before it first aired and after it ends we shall move on to be fans of other great shows not yet being broadcast, just like we did with Angel, JAG, Stargate, etc. Therefore, if you would prefer not read this story, I repeat, it is a one-shot standalone; it is _not _necessary to read this to understand _Having A Ball_ (in which Ruby does not appear in person anyway) and nor is it necessary to read _Having A Ball_ to understand this.


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 2**

Just over ten hours earlier, also in Santa Fe…

… 'the city different'…Except it _wasn't_ any different to any other U.S. City.

Too dry, too hot, too traffic-snarled, and too damn far from De – from Pontiac. Especially if you were driving a _real _car, not one of those idiotic eco-Prius things that had a top-speed of zero and which actually caused more ecological harm to make than it actually helped. God, people were so gullible; Sherlock Holmes (had he ever really existed) would be spinning in his grave at this wholesale abandonment of the Scientific Method – first you develop your theory, then you test it – to destruction; then you declare that you – just _might _– be onto something.

Didn't people realise that they lived in the Information Age, and most of the information out there was a big fat fib disseminated for the convenience of some bone idle shirker? Take Google-Schmoogle – _'about' eighteen hours from Pontiac to Santa Fe my Kansan ass…_ Angrily Sam put a little _oomph_ into his foot action on the gas pedal; the Impala roared and the Prius pricks prudently trembled and cleaved out of the path of the metallic beast.

All told, including just refuel stops and only a couple of barely five minute breaks at the side of the road to take a leak and stretch legs that were going beyond cramp into a competition to see which could 'go pretzel' first, he had just driven for twenty-two straight hours. On paper – or the web – it was a doddle, pure Interstate all the way… I55, I44, I40: except for the gridlock in St. Louis that had held him for two hours. Okay, so a lot of folk cut their losses and took the I70 from St. Louis, but Sam would have rather gnawed his own knuckles bloody. Interstate 70 went into _Kansas_. Even worse, it went straight through Kansas City, and past _Lawrence_, the least favourite place in the entire country of the Winchester family.

Except there was no Winchester family, not anymore…just him. Alone.

_Damn it, suck it up Sam_…_No wonder Ruby gets irritated…being around me must be a constant 'Saturday night at the Wailing Wall' gig…_

And it wasn't entirely true – he had a nephew. _Ben_, Sam rolled the name around inside his mind…even though he'd given Dean 'space', what little he'd seen of the boy was far too 'mini Dean' for Sam _not _to be his uncle. Lisa Braedan could claim what she liked. A blood test was far less reliable than a DNA test, and unless a DNA test stated Sam and Ben Braedan were not genetically related…

Not that it would ever happen. Ben was far better off where he was and, jacked as it might be, being brought up as yet another of those increasing number of American kids with absent, feckless, irresponsible fathers than having a larger than life _bona fide _'super hero' father casting a huge black cloud over his life that he could never live up to. Ben Braedan growing up hating Dean for never being around as a stereotypical 'deadbeat dad' was far more likely to lead to him living a long and healthy life than trying to emulate Dean. Sam had tried to emulate Dean, and Dean had paid the price for it.

Pain shot up his jaw and Sam had to consciously unclench his teeth. On one level he knew it was meaningless, but he couldn't _not_ base himself in Pontiac. It was the nearest actual town to the middle-of-nowhere spot he and Bobby had buried Dean, in a stand of trees in a small wood, with a simple wooden cross. Bobby had objected, knowing Dean had wanted a 'burn and urn'…_but I was so arrogant, so sure I would be able to get Dean back within a week…until I found out I was 'so last season…'_

Sam winced at the thought of another bridge he was going to have to rebuild, or at least do some serious repair work on – Bobby, bless him, still called occasionally, but Sam couldn't face it yet…_knowing I have to dig Dean up and cremate his body one thing, Bobby, but I can't do it…I can't pretend he's just another 'meat suit formerly known as…'_

But he had to start fulfilling his 'I will no longer be a jerk' pledge with Ruby…ironic, in so many ways she _was _Dean – down to the fashion sense and sarcastic attitude…what Dean's twin sister would have been like, had he ever had one – but in some vitally important ways she – unfortunately - let Sam get away with crap that Dean would have literally kicked his ass for trying to pull, and, in all honesty, Sam knew he would have deserved the ass-reaming…

_Not least my sexual technique…though I doubt you can label an approach that has nothing going for it except blunt directness a 'technique'…the word implies an adeptness, expertise, an ability to apply skill…yanking her down to the floor-stroke-shoving her up against the nearest wall and jumping on top of her mindlessly does not qualify on any count, Samuel…_

"Damn it!" Sam cringed at the blaring of horns as he swung a wild right to make the turn he needed.

Another thing he couldn't get used to, because it wasn't possible – to be the 'navigator-driver'. The very phrase 'sat-nav' had made Dean's lip curl with contempt, and so Sam's role as shotgun was to nurse the atlases and road maps as they travelled from Boondocks to Back End of Beyond and try and get them there as fast as possible. Thing was, you could look at a map, or you could look at the road, but you couldn't do both.

_Whereinhell _was the Santa Felipe motel complex? At least there was currently nobody behind him and he slowed to look at the road signs…

Although - it wasn't _all _Bad Sam here. He _had _called Ruby – repeatedly. And texted her, and SMS'd her, and IM'd her, and done everything except tie a note to the leg of a carrier pigeon since eight o'clock in the morning yester- nope, wait…twenty-two hours on the road, and it was eight in the a.m. _now_ – so yeah, since eight yesterday morning he'd spent nearly 24 solid hours trying to find Ruby because she'd suddenly lost the ability _to answer her damn cell phone! _Despite having been human in an era when the plague was the biggest 'bogeyman _du jour'_ Ruby had never had any problem with modern tech', from steam showers to microwaves to cars to TiVo, yet now she'd gone all _'what does this button do?'_ on him?

And he'd had to drive nearly a day, away from where he could cling to at least the illusion of being 'close' to Dean, along _toll _roads, no less, to reach too hot, too bright, too pretentious by half Santa Fe…_I swear, if Ruby has only forgotten to charge the battery of her cell I will **not **be responsible for my actions…_

But it was a lot better than a lot of other things that could have been preventing her from answering his calls; Lillith's goons were increasing in number and viciousness these days…

By some miracle, the motel sign was large and obvious, and gave the poor sap driver plenty of time to indicate and turn without surprising and infuriating any driver behind. Sam pulled in and parked, hiding his iPod in the Impala's glove box and locking the car as he got out, scanning for Room No.20 – there right at the end of a row of single storey rooms, at the edge of the lot out of sight of the main office and screened from the road by a small row of cypress trees.

A small 'city car' saloon was parked in the space directly outside, painted an exuberant fire-engine red…or hell-fire red, depending on your perspective – but then, Ruby never shied away from the reality of what she _was_; it was an acceptance Sam envied, knowing he'd been running away – from a lot of things – long _before_ Azazel had done his '_Back to the Future_' routine and given Sam more crap to deal with in the revelation that Azazel had infected him – all the psychic kids – with his, or more accurately its – own blood. Given what a big fat lot of good the evil haemoglobin had done for Max Miller, Ava Wilson, Andy Gallagher and Jake Tulley _et al_, Sam had no optimism left regarding it.

From the look of it, including Ruby there were only about half-a-dozen guests, most of them packed into the rooms near the main building that got most of the day's sunshine and where they could presumably barrack the manager about ice, towels, quarters for the vibrating beds and whatever they wanted to whinge about. This was one of those motels hunters liked if they could get – not so sleazy that it charged by the hour – or, as in that one never-to-be-forgotten place in Fort Worth, Texas, in fifteen-minute blocks! – but not so up-market that it had a manager who was actually paid enough to be mildly interested in the people who stayed there and who might bestir himself to use a master key to take a sneak 'n' peek in any of the rooms.

Sam frowned as he walked across the parking lot to the room; locating Ruby's location via her cell's GPS had been easy, and once he'd Googled the location as a motel, he'd gambled that she would have signed in under her usual pseudonym of Chrissie Cassidy and a quick call to the manager spinning some line about meeting up with his sister there and having forgotten her room number had taken all of ten seconds flat.

But _what _was she doing here? He had been doing his best to tone his mental muscle, and okay, he'd hadn't been a prince amongst men lately, but Ruby had seduced _him_ – it had to have been obvious he wasn't exactly at his best. Yes, he'd wanted her, but he'd have kept his mouth and his zipper shut about it if she hadn't made the first move. Ruby _knew _how important it was that he take out Lillith, so _why_ had she veered off on this little road trip over 1200 miles across country without even mentioning it in passing?

He raised his hand and rapped his knuckles sharply on the room door, _rat-a-tat-tat_. "Ruby? Ruby! Are you in there?!"

"Yeah!"

Sam relaxed at the loud, clear response which clearly lacked any hint of distress or duress – 'yes, it's me' had been the wording of the code phrase they'd agreed just in case one of them was jumped in a motel room and forced to talk to the other with a knife, gun or hulking demon-possessed hard-man too near their throat or ribs.

_And now what?_

"Ruby?! It's me, Sam!"

"I got that!"

…

"Then let me in!" he protested after a minute as he realised that no other response would be forthcoming.

"No!"

_No?_ "Ruby!" he rattled the door handle with vigorous ire. "I drove nearly twenty-four hours to get here!"

"I didn't ask you to!" her voice was muffled momentarily. "I'm busy, Sam. I don't have time for you right now!"

Indignation swelled like a perfect surfing wave. _She didn't have time _for the guy who'd driven all night to save her sorry butt because he'd been concerned she was being held hostage or captive or worse by fiends – actual, literal, _fiends_?! "I wouldn't have needed to if you'd answered your cell just once!" he yelled.

"I _did _answer – to tell you I'm _busy_!"

Furious at this fib, Sam dragged his cell out of his jacket pocket and –

_Whoops_. There was a text message…only forty minutes after he'd set off from Pontiac, right about the time he had been ranting – out loud and loudly – about how much he was going to bawl Ruby out when he found her…He pressed the read key: _Sumthin came up, bk in P cupla days. R. _

Succinct and utterly unenlightening – and he wasn't going to argue about it through a locked door. "Ruby! I _swear _if you don't open this door I will kick it in right – "

The door shuddered as it was wrenched open, and Ruby's eyes – solid obsidian black, solid demon black with temper – glared into Sam's own.

_Continued in Chapter 3…_

© 2009

The Cat's Whiskers


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 3**

Which was wrong. They shouldn't. There were people who shared eye level with Sam Winchester up where the air was rare, but Ruby, though far from a shortstop, wasn't one of them.

His brain, automatically processing the input from his senses, experienced a minor disruption to the smooth flow that was the biochemical equivalent of _does not compute_, and which his hindbrain summed up with a simple, caveman grunt: _gimme_.

Her height was explained by – Jimmy Choos, or at least superb knock-offs. A dark patent green in an alligator skin pattern, with a narrow vertical T-strap and tiny silver buckle around the ankle and at least 3-inch-high narrow metal silver heels that probably needed to be registered as a lethal weapon in some states.

The stunning footwear accentuated long legs clad in sheer black _stockings_, Sam knew, because Ruby _hated _ pantyhose. The first time he'd laughed – properly, really laughed – since he'd lost Dean, had been when a fulminating Ruby had declared that their inventor had been a secret woman-hating sadist who ought to have been strung up by a pair. The stockings disappeared beneath the hem of a straight charcoal grey skirt with a narrow vertical black pinstripe, the conservative primness of which was offset by the fact that the hem finished a good six or seven inches _above_ her knees.

She was wearing an obviously matching single-breasted charcoal-pinstripe suit jacket over a v-necked but sedate cream silk blouse with small faux pearl buttons down the front. Her long hair was taken up in some sort of elegant pin-up – coiffed or chignon or whatever they called it – exposing the long graceful curve of her bare, delicate neck. A small pair of pearl teardrop earrings hung from her lobes, matching, the larger but not tacky pearl teardrop pendant necklace she was wearing. The whole outfit was pure Hot Realtor or Prim School Teacher or Repressed Lawyer or Sexy CEO from any one of myriad soft porn skin flicks.

"_Unh_." As his blood supply reflexively began to largely divert _away _from his brain, Sam tried to gather his wits sufficient for coherency, because it _wasn't _Ruby.

The essence of 'Ruby' was – behind her, in the slob's paradise that was her motel room, with her usual attire of non-trendy but sturdy boots, black/grey T-shirts and dark denim jeans tossed casually on various surfaces, next to her preferred waist-length black leather jacket…there were also several very familiar lacy bras scattered around which…(if they hadn't been enough to don underneath this outfit that practically screamed, 'ravish me on the boardroom table right now', what was she wearing under there?)

But he glimpsed other things that diverted his blood flow appropriately back to his neurons – like her holdall on the bed, which had a Mad Axe Murderer's wet dream of a machete laying on top of the bundled clothing, and that pearl-chased 9mm Beretta handgun peeking out from under a bra-cup with protective sigils carved into the metalwork, meaning the clip was likely to contain silver, iron or rock-salt bullets as opposed to lead. Instinctively he stepped forward into the doorway, forcing her to give a step, and yep, right there at the vanity table with hairbrush and lipstick were non-standard female accessories – bottle of Holy Water, Buddhist prayer beads and a small pouch of presumably protective or summoning herbs.

"Are you _hunting?_"

"No! I'm dressed like a contestant in The Miss Power Dresser 09 competition because I _like _risking my ankles on the teetering heels of death and I _adore _getting all squished and constricted in this must-have number from the Ball-Breaker Bitches Spring Collection. _YesI'mhunting._"

"You can't!" Sam blurted unfortunately before his common sense caught up with his mouth.

Ruby's black eyes momentarily seemed to glow like highly polished onyx. "Do you remember the knife?"

"Knife?"

"The special demon-killing knife I _gave _to you and Dean last year?"

"Uh, yes?" Sam felt the hairs on his nape prickle at her calm face and pleasant tone.

"_What_ did you think I used it for _before_? To chop _celery?!"_

Ah, there was the strident volume of female ire that male instinct warned him to look out for. But his own anger had not entirely ceased to smoulder. "That's one reason why it's too dangerous! Damn it Ruby, I have the knife now. Going up against something with no back up –"

"How do you think I _used _to hunt before I got tangled up with the pair of you! And going in _with _back-up didn't mean diddly squat against the Seven Deadly Sins if I hadn't sliced and diced them down to nice bite-sized chunks for you!"

"Then what about Lillith?!" Sam shot back. "You're supposed to be souping me up to take out her, not indulging in trivial side trips! You're supposed to be teaching me – "

"And you're supposed to be learning!" Ruby fired back. "Two things, Sam – all I asked of you were two things, patience, and sobriety. We'd been at it barely two weeks when I got thrown against a wall and my own knife shoved against my neck because you had the patience of a seam squirrel. And it nearly got both of us and an innocent child killed, remember! So much for patience."

"I admit I – "

"_Oooh_, big of you! And then there's sobriety. You know the only way to get your whammy up to speed is to _practice_ – hone and tone like a muscle. But the slightest twinge and you're popping pills and reaching for the nearest swig of Jack, Jim or Johnny."

"Ruby the pain – "

"I don't care!" Ruby cut him off. "Get over it! The brother you loved more than anything else in the world is dead, and that's tearing you apart. I get that – and so does everyone else! Go out there and stop anyone in the street, Sam. The kid who lost his mom to cancer when he was ten, the girl who lost her adored father to a heart attack out of left field in high school; the woman whose husband got shot to death in the street by a strung out mugger when he was only on the sidewalk because he'd sneaked out to buy her some surprise flowers for their wedding anniversary. The man left widowed with a baby to take care of 'cause some a-hole high as a kite and drunk as a skunk mowed down a bunch of folks on a pedestrian crossing like he was playing bowling with his car."

"Enough, Ruby!"

"No it's not enough!" Ruby had had enough of his petulant posturing, "Those stories are played out a million times over every day. I _told you_ Sam, that I know what it's like to lose someone. And it never gets any easier because time doesn't heal, it just gives you fresher, rawer scars to deal with over the top of the old ones. I'm going to say this only once, Sammy: _I _decided to help you, and _I_ can decide to be _unhelpful _like you wouldn't believe. Ergo, I am not your demon _slave_. And I am _not_ your demon whore."

"I didn't mean to treat you like –"

"Wrong, Sam. You didn't _mean_ anything because you just didn't _care_. I've never been anyone's scapegoat or whipping boy or excuse and I'm certainly not yours. So yeah, I bailed for a coupla days. Tough. I had my own action-packed, stressed-out life – unlife, resurrection…_whatever_ – to deal with decades before you and your bro' were even twinkles in your daddy's eye. I have responsibilities of my own, stuff I have to take care off. It doesn't involve you and it's none of your damn business. So go back to Pontiac like a good little boy, and I'll be back in a few." Ruby gave him the full sarcasm. "Oh, and mind the step."

"Step?" Wincing at the largely justified anger in her withering retort, Sam repeated the _non sequitur_ in confusion.

"Yep."

Abruptly invisible pressure against his chest sent him stumbling back out onto the porch and his foot slipped off the step up from the parking lot; a second later the wind was knocked out of him as his butt smacked hard onto the blacktop from overbalancing and he gaped at Ruby in outraged fury as she smirked and swung the door shut on his humiliated face…

_Continued in Chapter 4…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 4**

Okay, she shouldn't have chuckled as she'd shut the door, but the sight of him tangling up in his own ankles and ending up unceremoniously on his butt had been too funny to resist.

It had certainly kept her going throughout today's little funfest with Mr Grab 'n' Grope here. It was true that though Piven being a dick as well as the slave to his rather than it's master (and she had known that despite deep character flaws Dean Winchester could be relied upon to think with the head between his ears not his legs when you needed him to), had made him easy to control, there were limits. She couldn't just cut and run without arousing Piven's suspicions as well as his lust and the last thing she needed was him going to the police in an attempt to make trouble for the 'realtor' who'd had the effrontery to blow him off instead of just blow him. If the cop lumbered with the checking uncovered enough to pique his or her curiosity, it could lead to all sorts of complications, and complicated was such a drag.

Not that it was a problem, since she'd perfected her M.O. into Oscar™ winning material when it came to ditching the unwanted male fondly believing he was on to a sure thing: _pain_. Loud, vocal, whiny, girlie squawking. It was the audio equivalent of an ice-cold shower and worked a lot faster and better. And these killer heels were perfect for her pseudo-agony.

She favoured Piven with a smile as sweet as candyfloss and as fake as a three dollar bill, a smile that had the man possessed _any _empathy or even one single perceptive cell in his body, would have made him blanche and run for the hills. "I just have to stop off for a moment at my room, if that's ok?"

"No problem, honey."

Ruby felt suddenly cheerful at his laughable belief he'd hidden his telegraphed intent for them to never get around to _leaving _her motel room. The fun she was going to have getting rid of him more than made up for the complete wash out today had been. And once he'd scuttled out of earshot of her histrionic pained performance, she would use all the water available in the bathroom's happily quite large shower and get a good night's interrupted before she had to drive back tomorrow to lock horns with Whiny Winchester again.

Smoothly she pulled into her parking space in front of Room 20, momentarily 'fumbling' with the car keys as he jumped out of the car with alacrity to cover the fact that she locked the vehicle, despite supposedly intending to 'only be a moment'. It was actually very easy to pull off, and all in the flexibility of the ankle. She would step over the threshold, abruptly 'wobble' and end up crumpled on the floor whinging and crying and clutching at her ankle which would be artfully posed at an 'odd' angle. Every time he so much as breathed she would squeal and complain and be helpless.

She bet against herself – if he lasted ten seconds before he was mumbling excuses and backing out of the door while she nursed her 'injury' then she would be losing her touch. It would be an incoherent mumble about 'grabbing a cab' as he did the backward shuffle to freedom from hysterical females. She'd even been tempted, on occasion, to buy one of those cheesy plastic Oscars™ that tourists could buy as souvenirs at places like MGM or Universal Studios – 'best actress…'

"Here's my key card," she chirruped with another winsome smile that should have had his protective instincts sounding a klaxon, but he didn't realise that the only she would bare for him was what she already was – her teeth, as he took the opportunity to clamp a meaty, sweaty, squishy hand to the left globe of her butt and start what he fondly imagined to be sexy squeezing.

Feeling as if she'd just sat on a giant jellyfish, Ruby instantly re-jigged her plan so that her 'artful ankle collapse' would also include 'accidentally' jabbing her stiletto heel into Pervert Piven's tender foot – heavily.

With relief, she swiped the key card and threw open the door – _Showtime – _one step, two step – collapse in a -

Oh.

Piven, his perverted daydreams abruptly interrupted, blurted out, "Who the hell are you?"

"Get your fat hand off _my _ass." Sam Winchester enunciated coldly.

_Uh-oh._

_Continued in Chapter 5…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 5**

"Huh?" Too dumb to realise the statement was an aggressive and deliberate statement of ownership and not just an angry slip of words, and having no sensitivity whatsoever, Piven just continued to glare at the 'kid' who had ruined his chances of a roll in the sack with _whatshername_ here.

_I wonder where he parked the Impala – focus, Ruby! If Sam ganks this sleazeoid you are going to have to spend half the night getting rid of Piven's meat and making sure there is no forensic left, before you get to ream Sam a new one for the toddler temper tantrum!_

And Sam had clearly had more than enough time to work himself up into a snit. Her motel room, which this morning had looked like a celebrity death-match between two tornadoes, was now spotless, the bed made with crisp hospital corners, the detritus from the table cleared into the trashcan and her holdall neatly packed with clothes that were folded – and had _creases? _There had been _ironing_?

No wonder Sam looked ready to eviscerate Piven with his wacky mental mojo alone, his temper stewing with the obsessive cleaning and – _ouch, _if her favourite bra was any sign, building up to the boil like a saucepan of milk left unattended on a hot stove, because her clothes were neatly folded and packed, except for that favourite frippery resting on top of the open holdall – carnation pink silk with embroidered black roses and a lace trim…and which looked crumpled and almost wilted as if it had been ferociously crushed between, say, a large pair of angry hands.

_Uh-oh._

"Mind the step," Sam advised Piven with silky calm.

"Huh? _Ack!_" Piven squawked as an invisible pressure shoved against his torso, sending him stumbling back so he tripped over his own feet and slipped off the step to end up open-mouthed on his butt in the parking lot gaping at the motel door that had swung violently shut in his face.

"Your first mistake was in treating me like a horny teenager," Sam enunciated precisely, only demonstrating how angry he was. "Your second was in letting that dick grope you like a guy with his new blow-up doll all day and your third was in bringing the dick back here to let him put his dick in you."

"And _your _mistake was in not doing as you were told and going back to Pontiac like a good little boy instead pulling what was obviously your Junior Stalker routine." Ruby was fed up and footsore, throwing the words back just as irately as she fulfilled the Dream of the Day and pulled off the killer stilettos – _oooh, so good_…and so ruined by Sam the Stroppy.

"I followed you because you said you were _hunting_!" Sam struggled for control as his indignation began to steer dangerously close to raving. "I _thought _you might need some _back-up_. You agreed to soup me up to take out Lillith and I agreed to sobriety and _patience_, not to sit on my thumbs while you take time-outs because you want to scratch some ho' itch!"

"What, that _surprises_ you? Here's a tip, _kid_, having the _biggest_ 'gun' in the world does you no good at all if you don't know how to _use_ it." She regretted the spiteful sexual slur as soon as the words left her lips but was too angry to apologise.

"You bitch – "

"Yes, I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a demon undercover –" Ruby cursed herself mentally for the slip and cut off her sing-song paraphrasing of the popular song, "I'll repeat it one more time to get it through your thick Sam skull – I was hunting before your _grandparents_ were twinkles in their daddy's eyes, and you are _not _the only game in town, Sam. I have other stuff I have to take care off – like this, which is none of your business – I couldn't pass up this hunt -"

"Don't _lie_ to me about being on some _stupid hunt_– !" Sam yelled and yelped in pain as Ruby, completely forgetting in her eruption that she was clad only in her stocking feet not her preferred attire of jeans, T-shirt and solid, comfortable boots, lashed out with a violent knee-kick that fortunately for him didn't connect with the full force it would otherwise have done. "_OUCH!"_

He thought _that_ was painful?! Ruby sliced the edge of her hand at his neck and instinctively he blocked and jabbed towards her solar plexus. For a moment two enraged people with combat training lashed and blocked punches and kicks, until Ruby automatically lashed out with her power rather than her fists; Sam yelped again in surprise as suddenly an invisible force threw him back a good ten feet into the short left-hand side wall of the motel room, whacking his head against the plaster and causing one of the small paintings of some sort of seascape, to fall off and hit the carpet. "_OW!!_"

Furiously Ruby jerked her head sharply forward and Sam's head was whacked back into the wall again, "_Shut your damn whining!_" and then again. "_I'm in charge of me, Winchester!!"_ Whack. "_Deal with it and get over yourself you -_"

Infuriated, Sam didn't even feel the pressure-pain of his own abilities as he returned the mental attack; Ruby screeched as she was suddenly flung forward, away from the motel room door, to _thwack!_ her knees on the side of the bed as she was sent tumbling over the bedspread to fall off the other side and landed with a hard thud on the carpet in front of the bathroom door, her head just missing the edge of the bedside cabinet on that side of the queen.

Spluttering imprecations Ruby scrambled up and Sam gasped as the wind was knocked out of him with Ruby slamming his whole body back into the wall – sending up puffs of old plaster from the impact. Completely beyond rational thought and seeing only the 'red mist', Sam retaliated and flung Ruby again, the obstacle of the bed sending her body pinwheeling over twice. Somehow she managed to dig her fingers into the edge of the mattress to stop herself ending up on the floor again, but there was a loud _crack! _as she banged her forehead on the top of the other beside cabinet.

Struggling to sit up the seconds of silence stretched as both lashed out mentally and hit stalemate – Sam could not move from being pinned against the wall, Ruby was held immobile by desperately trying to remain in position against the pressure trying to tip her ignominiously off the edge of the bed onto the carpet.

_Continued in Chapter 6…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 6**

Sam couldn't hear anything other than the roaring in his ears as his heart pumped blood frantically around his body for the fight/flight instinctual response. He could feel the sweat beading at his hairline as he _straaaainned_ to break Ruby's grip, but she was too strong – but _she _couldn't move either, and he felt frenzied glee as her face screwed up with enraged frustration as she tried to move as well.

But the throes of pain were excruciating – ten times worse than what he endured when dragging a demon from its host – he _couldn't' _endure this, his skin prickling and his nerve-endings in spasm as the pain ratcheted up.

Sam hissed as the agony within his skull increased until he just couldn't bear it for a moment more – but suddenly the pain in his head _twisted_, and instead of intolerable pressure ballooning outwards like trying to shatter his skull from within, his brain suddenly felt as though it had a flame lit within in it, a deep-seated burning sensation flooded his system – the _intensity_ was still there, but suddenly he was _part _of the burning flame in his mind, not clinging desperately by his fingertips to some bit of flotsam being tossed around in a firestorm.

He gulped welcome air as he struggled not to give into his almost berserk rage, and gradually, something else joined the heady mix of testosterone, adrenaline, endorphins, demon blood and assorted biochemical cocktails thundering around his system like a herd of wild broncos as he took in Ruby's dishabille with her hair collapsing out of the clip and whipped around her face full of crackling static and her skirt twisted half way around her waist.

Ruby felt the unseen constraints around her falter slightly and snarled in raging intent; she was going to smash him _bodily through the wall_! She –

Reflexively she twitched her head back as something tiny and white flirted straight past her head, almost taking her eye out. There was another sharp _ping!_ and she stared as the second of the small white mother-of-pearl buttons tore off her 'realtor' blouse as if suddenly rocket-propelled. Abruptly something solid shoved her in the chest, knocking her backwards onto the bolsters and pillows that saved her head from bashing the head-board. She felt a sharp tug, then another, then the front clasp of her second-favourite bra sprang open and moved aside, combining with the two missing buttons to partially expose her breasts.

Incensed, Ruby surged up into a sitting position and mentally hurtled one of her prize stilettos through the air directly at Sam. "You lay _one finger _on me and I'll chop it off!"

Unable to move hardly at all, Sam was just able to tilt his head aside as the killer heel of her fake Jimmy Choo whacked into the plaster and sank in nearly a half-inch. He was absolutely livid, and lust took the opportunity presented by the drenching of caveman 'me-wanna-fight' hormones to crash the party swirling around in Chez Sam and turn the testosterone in a direction just as primal, but even more basic_._ He bared his teeth at her. "I'm not going to lay a _single finger_ on you – I'm going to _use all of them_!"

He was aware of the faint tickling wetness from both nostrils but just didn't care about his umpteenth nosebleed as he exerted his will to knock Ruby back over again. For a moment he struggled as her eyes went completely obsidian black with glittering fury and he felt a buzzing pressure around his ears as she gathered her will with serious intent to smash him against the wall like a toddler bashing a spoon on a bucket. Her hair was wrapping around her face in tangles, and Sam took the chance to distract her momentarily by focussing on the lopsided hair clip, a narrow, mother of pearl decorated grip and yanking at it sharply with his mind. Ruby cried out in pain, having not expected girlie hair-yanking tactics from her opponent, but suddenly the clip was gone and her hair fell in her face, making her shake her head from side to side to clear her vision.

Sam held the clip in the air slightly and looked at Ruby's inviting torso, now exposed by her twisting movements. She had wonderful skin, the colour of caramel, smooth and soft and warm, and her nipples were dainty, a light coral pink and invitingly pert. Gathering his concentration, Sam carefully but firmly dragged the edge of the mother-of-pearl hair clip over Ruby's left nipple, savage satisfaction surging at her startled gasp.

Unable to sit back up or move her limbs, Ruby looked down at the unexpected sensation. Now half-reclining against the pillows her open jacket had got bunched up underneath her and her rucked up blouse now left her chest bare. Before she could gather her focus and retaliate, the clip wavered in the air, then slowly scraped across her right nipple in a way that sent a frisson through her body. The edge of the clip wasn't blunt, and Sam could really hurt her if he used the clip carelessly, but somehow that realisation wasn't sending signals of _fear_ through her but _anticipation_. "Don't you _dare_ – Sam!"

Hearing the snarl in her voice dwindle to be replaced by the higher wavering octave of reluctant pleasure, Sam repeated the actions again and again, watching as her torso flushed, and her nipples tightened and pouted and her lovely breasts swelled slightly. He gritted his teeth as the image popped into his head of that morning and those pasty, podgy, fake-tanned fat fingers that had been allowed to grope one of those delightful sweet globes. _Mine_.

"Sam!" Ruby swallowed and tried to get it together, but he had never used fashion accessories in this way before! Something brushed over her right nipple, the one not being teased by the flicking hair clip, then – despite him being pinned immobile to the wall on the other side of the room – she clearly felt him roll her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and then pluck it teasingly.

Hearing the involuntary whimper of delight she made, Sam visualised in his head, his fingers, cupping Ruby's luscious breasts, teasing the nipples tighter and tauter – he could _feel_ the living silk of her skin, feel the firmer, slightly rougher texture of her peaks between his fingers, _flick_ one pouting nub with his tongue, back and forth, back and forth, then the other, until Ruby made gratifying, tiny sub-vocal moans of definite approval. He _tasted_ her left nipple as he sucked it hard, her breathless response feeding his appetite for her. He switched to her right nipple and laved it as he had its mate, realising also that he had been able to move slightly away from the wall as Ruby's control began to slip, and masculine determination surged afresh. He was aware of the immense energy flowing through him at his fierce concentration, and yet somehow he could bear the burning within – what he was doing was _fuelling _that inner inferno, not _exhausting_ it.

Ruby found she could move her head and lift up her arms very slightly, but she shuddered as sexual energy pulsed around her body, saturating her bloodstream, denied the outlet of energy usually found in bodily movement. She tried to push past the immediate sensations, but the erotic stimulus of Sam's hands and mouth – even though they _weren't _physically _there _- were so caressing and stroking. Under her skirt, even though it couldn't _be _there, a finger rubbed her panties over her cleft and then slipped itself inside to tease her clitoris with firm fondling. Ruby groaned with need at the sweet torment when that invisible finger was joined by another, and both ventured inside her, teasing and rubbing and stroking her delicate inner sheath to wet readiness.

_It wasn't enough_, even as part of him wanted to do this all night, to stand and watch her shiver with bliss at what he was doing, wanted to make her cry out again and again with delight. He thought of that leering bastard she'd been swanning around with all day, and he had to be inside her. Adrenaline and testosterone surged again as he was able to move forward away from the wall without being held back, concentrating on pleasuring Ruby, increasing his want and determination to have. He increased the sensation of his fingers inside Ruby, making her cry out sharply with frustrated need as she tried to achieve release, seeing that her eyes were solid black, showing that she was in an instinctive state, with her rationality and self-control subsumed by the physical, sensual pleasure he was giving her.

For a moment Ruby was unaware of movement, until the bed dipped and she vaguely realised that Sam was _here _instead of _there _but – now he put his real hand under the hem of her skirt and his fingers brushed across her lower belly as they found the edge of her underwear; there was a quiet _riiip_ and the dainty silk frivolity was flicked casually across the room by him.

Still held immobile she couldn't move her hips in the slightest as Sam drew back his hand and put his _head _under the hem of her skirt and she could _feel _his warm breath right _there _and "_Saaam!!_"

Unable to see, and unable to move, she could only feel – and anticipate as Sam took his time savouring her. Ruby was barely aware of her cries at every exquisite lick of his tongue and graze of his teeth against her clitoris, as he laved her delicate inner tissues, licking her juices that flowed for him. She had pleasured him several times, she _liked _the taste of him, of his most intimate male essence, but she had never asked him to reciprocate, had deliberately never invited this extreme intimacy and – she was going to explode from his wicked, talented mouth…he was _humming_! Humming faintly as he pressed his mouth between her thighs and _oh ­_–

She almost wailed as he stopped; she was so close, so damn close, she just needed – the rasp of his zipper as he simply shoved his jeans down slightly and eased out his erection; Sam was big guy, all over and her internal muscles clenched with primal feminine anticipation.

His eyes glittered so dark blue with arousal that they were nearly black themselves as he moved over her, roughly shoving her skirt up out of his way; he thrust himself into her with deliberate, fierce possessiveness, growling in male delight as she was slick and hot and ready for him, so the head of his cock was deliciously worked by her cervix at the core of her.

"_You're mine, Ruby_." He began to ride her hard, but held on to mental control, keeping her still, even as he bent his head and mouthed her breasts, sucking hard to make love bites that would mark her as his for days.

He clung desperately to his mental hold on her as Ruby cried out his name again, and again as she climaxed and her inner muscles clenched powerfully around his cock, the delight of their squeezing and massaging almost unbearable, but he braced himself over her, shifting his position slightly to get inside her as fully as possible, increasing the power of his hip movements and was rewarded as she had another orgasm, gasping out his name, her lips parting as she panted to get in air, her breasts heaving magnificently. At the corner of her bottom lip, a small red bead expanded, a miniscule cut where one of them had inadvertently nipped her lip; instinctively he leaned down and flicked the tiny wound with the tip of his tongue –

For an instant his whole tongue seemed to fizz and sparkle and he swallowed in auto-reflex; euphoric ecstasy flashed through his entire body until every hair stood rigidly on end and – pure, distilled bliss swallowed his mind whole – he was only dimly aware of bucking and jerking as he experienced the most wild and wonderful climax he had _ever _had that went on and on and on and then he felt his eyes roll back in his head and -

_Continued in Chapter 7…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 7**

_I __**fainted**_…Sam realised incredulously.

"Yep, what Dean would have called a full-on girlie fit of the vapours."

Either Ruby had just acquired wicked telepathy skills, or he'd said the words out loud.

Deciding to go with the second option, Sam blinked to clear his fuzzy vision and wished it worked on his muzzy head, and looked at Ruby sitting up next to his own slumped form, realising only seconds had passed. "What…what _was that_?!"

"I was too…otherwise occupied…to notice what you were doing," Ruby spoke with no discernible hint of apology in her droll tone, "but basically my blood gave you a bit of a boost, like when you walk in your socks across a nylon carpet and get a jolt of static electricity."

_A bit?_ He'd never experienced an orgasm so powerful in his life. "I don't…your blood…_demon _blood?"

She gave a deep sigh, her lips pursing in that habitual manner he had come to recognise meant Ruby didn't _really _want to discuss a topic; but she _would_, because she usually gave in to what _he_ wanted, and he intended to keep it that way.

"It's like a slimming pill – although, perhaps another analogy…er, like Viagra…maybe not…erm, Wait I know - you know how anabolic steroids – "

"Just go with the slimming pill, I can take it." Sam intervened.

"People who are fat by choice – I mean, they're don't have any illness like thrush that causes fatness – "

"Thyroid problems," Sam corrected hastily; it was all too easy to forget that, _technically_, Ruby was centuries old and came from a period in time when medical knowledge and medical terms of use fell into only two categories: 'plague' and 'not plague'.

"Well, people who are fat 'cause they live on their couches and eat crap want to be thin, right? _But_, they don't want to do the _work _to _become_ thin the only way that works long-term, by eating good food and being active."

"But then the slimming pill was invented, a short-cut, short-term, quick-fix solution." Sam got the analogy.

"Yeah, just like those steroid enhancer things boost a guy's pecs far faster than Mama Nature will do it - with none of the work, or young guys with no equipment failure still pop a V-pill so they can go from zero-to-sixty in a second without having to put any effort into getting it on." Ruby shrugged.

Sam wished she wouldn't – with her skirt now rolled up around her waist exposing her stocking-clad legs and her crumpled blouse half out of her waistband with her bra cups hanging from her shoulders, the way her breasts jiggled when she rolled her shoulders made him want to roll _her _on her back again because he was as rock hard and fully-aroused as he'd been when he'd pinned her to this great bed and…

When he'd pinned her to this bed and, essentially, raped her.

"No you didn't."

He jerked his head up to meet her eyes, half-actually worrying about the telepathy, but her expression showed that she was just reading _his _face.

"Sam, rape is not about lust – it's not even about sex at all. It's about hate, and power. A rapist doesn't take the time to make sure his victim is ready for him."

"But I – "

"Got me hot and wanting beforehand. Okay, that first night we, er, got it on and since – you haven't exactly even been close to the world's greatest lover –"

"You've been _faking_ it?!" Sam demanded in automatic male indignation – that wilted as she folded her arms across her bare breasts, hiding them from his eyes, and looked at him very steadily without blinking.

He winced; that first night he'd been wild and desperate and he'd shown scant consideration since. More than once he'd been metaphorically tearing along in a new, flash, carbon-fibre 250mph Ferrari only caring about gratifying his own wants whilst Ruby, sexually speaking, was the Impala – a classic beauty cruising along that needed to be coaxed and eased into fierce speed. He stared at the bedspread, feeling defensive and embarrassed.

"Not every time. My _point_ is that both of us were throwing a temper tantrum, both of us acted like jerks and took it out on each other. But Sam," she flicked his chin with her forefinger, making him look at her again, "_every_ time, not _once_ did you ever get inside me without checking that I was hot for you, that I was _ready_ for you to take me. And _that_ is never rape. At the risk of a Too-Much-Information moment, there is a _scientific reason_ that a woman's vagina becomes lubricated and slick when she is sexually aroused, and _more_ slick the _more_ turned on she is, because a guy's dick is a thick, wide and big stick that has to fit inside a _very _delicate, very _narrow_ channel and she will be seriously hurt if that channel is dry and not lubricated and some scumbag rapist shoves his loathsome dick in it like trying to force a tennis ball into a golf-ball hole. You're not a monster, Sam. So _please_, _please _deep-six the self-flagellation because I've just exhausted my caring sharing sensitivity-to-your-feelings reserves."

"Okay…" Sam swallowed, that sensation of a heavy weight pressing on his chest actually easing up. "But I _am _sorry."

She shrugged. "That right there proves you're not evil. Scumbags don't apologise. Besides, this gig has been played over and over back to the year dot. Every female who's ever existed, from the age of about twelve, spends her whole life with that subconscious knowledge that there is always the possibility of sexual violence."

"You're not making me feel very good about myself or my gender here."

"Why would I _want _to?" She retorted, not entirely without reason. "Yeah, I have an attitude problem, I could care _less_. Women like your _fiancée _Miss Jessica Lee Moore – no offence - and Dean's ex-squeeze Lisa Braeden go all _Bridget Jones _into _therapy _over not finding 'Mr Right' – it makes me want to hurl; women like Lisa Braeden think being an unmarried mother of an illegitimate child now is actually _difficult_ – they have no idea. Every female born after 1965 in this country – in the Western Hemisphere at any rate – should take a minute out of their neurotic day to thank whatever they believe in for their incredible good luck. Try living in a society where women were valued slightly _below_ domestic animals like a cow or sheep, and where an _intelligent _woman was viewed as a bizarre freak at best and unholy abomination at worst!"

Sam prudently kept his mouth shut, but for the first time looked at Ruby and saw – okay, not a _person_, but an _individual _– in genuine pain.

Ruby blew out a deep breath and pushed her fringe back from her face. "Sorry, I'm being a ranting bitch."

"Sounds like you have a right to be."

"It was long ago and it was far away," her nonchalant shoulder-roll didn't quite come off, "but back when I was human, having a pretty face was a _curse_, and being as _bright_ as you were beautiful was a special kind of living hell. In the little town where I…came from…there was a very pretty girl…she had seven children by as many fathers between the ages of fourteen and twenty-three, all of whom were the result of the next wannabe tin-pot tyrant swooping down and carrying her off. Oh, one or two actually ushered her into the bedchamber rather than carried her in like a sack of corn but they were all, essentially, the product of 'coercion'." Ruby made the last word drip with bitter irony.

Sam thought about Jess, the last time he'd seen her, and confident, capable Sarah Blake, and even how shrewd and bright Bela Talbot had been. "I can't even imagine..."

"She dumped the lot of them when she was twenty-five and became a nun. When the abbess told her all novices had to sleep on straw pallets her response was that was just fine because if she never saw a bed again it would be too soon." For a moment Ruby's eyes went distant, looking not away but within and then she admitted quietly, "She was my mother."

Once again he was speechless; Ruby was a _demon_. That all demons had once been human, and that Ruby had tried to claim 'understanding' of his grief by saying she still experienced some emotions, had been just quickly-forgotten abstract knowledge rather than real awareness.

"One of seven…" he echoed – wait, twenty-three to twenty-five was…the youngest had been two years old when mom had walked away.

"First of the bastard brood, and the cause of all her woes. Mother and I never really saw eye to eye."

Sam knew he had an idealised 'fantasy' view of 'Mom' by virtue of never having known Mary Winchester, and because of Dean and Dad's perpetual adoration of her, but how could a woman blame her _kids _for anything? "How could any of it be your fault?!"

"Because I haven't got the balls, literally. My mom was barely fourteen and was unfortunate enough to be out working the family's postage-stamp of a field when the local king of the hill decided to indulge his paedo' tendencies and deflowered her kicking and screaming on the spot – thanks, _pops_. He did give her coin, right up until I was born and lacked the right plumbing to be _worth_ acknowledging as a by-blow of his magnificent loins."

"Your mom couldn't blame you for being girl," Sam protested.

"Why not? If I'd been male, he would have carried on supporting her; probably paid for my education and set her up in a little cottage where she could afford to buy books. She would have had at least some social status and a measure of protection against being harassed and there would have been no more abductions and forcible impregnation – she was only fifteen when she popped out my eldest brother. That's the thing, Sam, back then, women were _property_. They weren't _kidnapped_, like a child, they were _stolen_ like a car – and treated as if they were about as sentient." She gave a derisive snort. "Damn listen to me, I should be on Oprah. _You _got Big Daddy Winchester issues, Ruby's all wah-wah 'cause mommy didn't hug her. What a pair we make."

For a moment Sam was tempted to go along with her self-deprecating 'this moment is _so _over' finish, but having lost his only remaining family, and Dean having meant the world to him, curiosity prompted him, "Your brothers and sisters…"

"I told you, the plague was big back then. I tried…but…illness, accidents…there were a couple of bad harvest years and recurrent plague outbreaks, then a heat-wave one year." Ruby shook her head, "It's all long past, anyway. What I'm trying to say is that you've already worked up a whole slew of hang-ups by yourself, without adding to your collection by turning this argument that got out of hand into some major crime and casting yourself as the villain and me as the helpless victim – because I've never been _either_."

"Okay." He wasn't going to pass up this 'get out of jail free' card, but he repeated. "But I promise this will never happen again, Ruby. And I mean about the blood too, I swear – "

"Of course it will." Ruby contradicted, and to his astonishment both her expression and her voice were _amused._

_Continued in Chapter 8…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 8**

_Did she really think he was that much of a douchebag_?! "No, Ruby –"

"Sam it will happen again because of three reasons: one, you've just had the best orgasm of your life; two, you're a guy - ergo awash with testosterone, and three – look down."

Automatically Sam did, and went red – despite the past minute or so of 'deep and meaningful' passion-killing exchange, framed by his open pants, his aroused penis was _still_ doing a fairly good flagpole impression in the hope of getting where it had been minutes before, sheathed in Ruby's delectable body.

"And when I screamed then – that was because I was _liking _it – a _lot_." Ruby admitted.

Sam hadn't even heard her, or anything beyond the complete sensory overload. But inside, a tiny voice, getting stronger, was persuasively latching onto the fact that Ruby wasn't disgusted or grossed out by what he'd done; viewed it in fact with equanimity. Which meant that maybe…if…it was only a couple of times…very occasionally…

A fresh thought struck him. "I've been practising and training to hone my mental muscles like you've taught me. But if I _didn't_…'taste'," he inserted the euphemism gratefully, "your…blood…would I be _strong_ enough to kill Lillith?"

Once again that look of reluctance passed over Ruby's face that meant they were approaching a sensitive topic. "Yes." She claimed in a subdued tone.

"Yes, _but_…?"

"Yes…eventually."

_Ah_, she'd already admitted that her blood was like the slimming pill or the Viagra or the steroids – short cuts that worked far faster than the safer, more sensible way. "Define 'eventually'?" he challenged.

"I have no idea – it's you that's doing it." Ruby claimed and raised a finger when he made to protest. "Since that night we first had sex, it's become easier for you to do certain things. The headaches aren't as ferocious as they were, the nosebleeds are less frequent and don't last as long, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Sam, the main problem you have is that you're fighting _you_. I get that; Dean's dying worry was that your powers would prove too much for you to handle, and honestly, he may well end up being right, because one thing I'm not is clairvoyant."

"You're saying the headaches and nosebleeds are _psychosomatic_? There's nothing really the matter?"

"Of _course _there _is_," Ruby rolled her eyes and starting ticking off on her fingers as she spoke, "You were brutally stabbed in the back and had your spinal cord severed, _then_ you were resurrected _only_ because the brother you loved more than anything sold his soul for it to happen – and you couldn't save him from the consequences. Part of you blames your _powers_ for all of that because you think if you'd only used them _properly_ you could have saved Dean."

"And I _should_ have been able to." Sam couldn't help but snap at her, feeling the anger and despair resurge. "Every one of the psychic kids woke up one morning with blinding headaches and by Day Two were using their abilities like natural born killers – it took Max Miller all of a week to have enough whammy to ice his douchebag of a father and toss me around like a rag doll – Jake Tulley, about two days from being whisked from Afghanistan to full on Russell Crowe in Gladiator wannabe. _My _powers had the stability of a blancmange in a earthquake and were about as reliable as a weather forecast." He saw the look that flashed across her face. "What?"

"No, you'll only get mad and we'll end up in another scream-fest."

"It's about Dean." The penny dropped; Dean was the one absolutely no-go area in their…association? Liaison? Relationship?…Whatever, he was out of patience. "Just say it, Ruby."

"I just _did_: you're fighting yourself now because you were fighting yourself _then_ because you'll always been fighting yourself ever since your powers first started to manifest, and that's because you've always had two things none of the other psychic kids had – _knowledge_ and _Dean_." Ruby told him earnestly; he at least appeared to be listening this time instead of the usual cold anger the D-word triggered in him, particularly when it came from _her _lips.

"Meaning?"

"Your dad was probably the greatest hunter ever, but he was blinkered and bigoted, like most hunters, viewing anything that even smacked of the mystical or paranormal was something 'bad' I wonder how many non-dangerous creatures just trying to get by he killed on the assumption _they _were the 'big bad' only to leave a human serial killer roaming free? It took your experience with Leonora and a personal taste of Gordon Walker's psychotic racism for both you and Dean to learn that your dad's good/evil division of the world didn't work in reality."

"Dad wasn't –" Sam began to protest weakly.

"He was _supposedly_ friends with Missouri Moseley _the psychic_, but you never met her until after he'd died. Don't you get how offensive that attitude is – 'I want you to help me but I don't trust you enough to let my nearest and dearest know you exist'? Charming."

"Something supernatural murdered my mother, and my girl, and from being a baby I was indoctrinated that anything remotely supernatural was synonymous with evil." Sam rubbed his hand over his face. "Pop psychology 101 - how come I've been too stupid to see that?"

"It's not stupidity, it's _refusal_ – there are none so blind as those who don't _want _to see, blah, blah, cliché et cetera. And then _Dean_ followed your dad's party line with extra attitude, until Leonora and Gordon Walker taught _him_ a much-needed lesson about good and evil. Dean meant the world to you, he was your brother; he always looked out for you. Having those 'powers' made you feel a freak, so you resisted them, but most of all you were afraid if he found out about them, Dean would hate you…Dean might even _hunt _you." She saw the memory of that unbearable possibility in the way he closed his eyes momentarily and swallowed hard. "You didn't want to have the powers in the first place so you tried the 'ignore them and they'll go away' method, then when you started using them –"

"I was afraid of what Dean would say, what he would do – to me. That he would just walk away – like I walked away to Stanford – and disown me as his brother."

"The other psychic kids were like toddlers grabbing the pretty sparkly because they didn't know it was a firecracker that would burn them and there was no Dean in their lives to warn them to stay away from the fire. So, your abilities are flabby from disuse and reluctance anyway and now a part of you believes that you don't _deserve_ to be able to use your abilities because when you needed to most you screwed up and Dean died – the headaches are partly physical stress and partly psychological self-punishment."

"Dr Phil has nothing on you," Sam quipped softly, but he saw the truth in her words.

"Cards on the table, Sam: the excruciating headaches and nosebleeds and muscle cramps are partly physical – like out-of-condition muscles complaining when you re-start an exercise regime. But yes, they are also partly psychosomatic because you don't feel that you deserve to be able to use them without pain as your penance for not using them to save Dean, even though there was nothing you could have done – 'hellhound' is a lot more than a cool name, Sam -."

Sam closed his eyes against the memory of the hideous gashes that had torn across Dean's chest and abdomen, and his utter, total worthless failure to stop them.

Ruby saw his pain, but it had to be said, so she did. "Now for the bottom line: you have to get over it, and now, if you are going to be strong enough to go up against Lillith with any hope of killing her anytime within the next thirty years – otherwise just like when you went off all gung-ho and half-cocked after that poor little girl – and don't think I've forgotten you sticking my own knife to my own neck, Sammy boy –" she was pleased he had the grace to wince again, "- then Lillith will hoot with laughter as she swats you like a fly, and you might as well gank yourself now for all you'll actually accomplish."

Sam wasn't clairvoyant either, but one thing he _could_ guess was that Lillith _didn't _intend taking the scenic route with lots of comfort breaks to get to whatever her evil destination was. It would be pedal to the metal Interstate all the way, which meant Sam having to take any longer than necessary to untangle his stupid Id and juice himself up was not an option. Which meant…

"How quickly will…your blood make me able to go after her?"

"Honestly…I don't know." Ruby looked at him very seriously, not shrugging or deflecting any 'deep and meaningful', "Sam if we start this, there's no going back. _Drinking _my blood when we're having sex is one thing, but for any real benefit you're going to have to imbibe frequently and I am _not _going to lie down for you daily so you can hide what you're doing from _yourself_ under a comfy, convenient Ruby- blanket of lust and passion."

"I get that."

"Good, because you need to. It's _dangerous_ Sam, and I can't predict the results. What I do know is that my blood will only work as long as you keep using it." She saw the flicker cross his face. "If you've got some idea about juicing yourself up to Superman level and then stopping, forget it. You'll literally cut them down like sheaves of corn for so long and then you'll come up against a badass only find you're out of gas at the critical moment, so to speak – at which point you'll also be dead. And if that badass happens to be _Lillith _–"

"I need to keep putting gas in the tank." He acknowledged.

Silence descended, which Ruby didn't break, and Sam realised it _was _up to him. Fact: he hated Lillith for taking Dean from him with an intensity that probably should have scared him, but didn't. Fact: he would do whatever it took to enable him to stand before her and crush the life from her. Fact: he _was_ getting stronger, but nowhere near _fast_ enough to do or be what he _needed_. Fact: that tiny taste of Ruby's blood had been…fantastic.

Bottom line: he needed _something _to increase his 'whammy', and he needed it _now_. Blood was gross, but not as gross as _some_ options to accomplish the same result would have been. Besides, if that one tiny taste was enough to give him the best orgasm he'd ever had…and, although of course there was no emotional attachment as such, he _liked _sex with Ruby; specifically because in every _other _part of his existence since she'd saved him from Lillith's goons _she_ was the boss - she was in charge, she doled out the orders and ran sarcastic commentary on his progress and half the time treated him like a cute but dim first grader. Except when it came to sex, where she was submissive; even though she had instigated their first encounter, he had taken control, he dominated her, he was – literally most of the time – the one on top and he had no intention of allowing it to be any other way. It was a 'no-brainer' if he wanted to experience that feeling again.

Preferably now.

_Continued in Chapter 9…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**GIVE AND TAKE **

**Chapter 8**

"Ruby…"

"You're sure?" She pushed, seemingly determined that there would be no uncertainty.

"Yes." For a moment he saw her eyes cloud up with a strange mixture of emotions – regret, triumph, determination and a sort of wistful longing – but each flickered and was gone in microsecond-microsecond-microsecond to the point where he was half-convinced he'd imagined the lot of them. "I…now…please?"

In answer, Ruby slid off the bed 'her' side, nearest the motel door, and managed to unbutton and remove the bunched up skirt, seriously damaged blouse and jacket and bra, as Sam shucked his shirt and pulled his T-shirt over his head, the charm necklace of Dean's that he now always wore around his own neck almost seeming to prickle the skin of his chest underneath it hotly, which he knew was a purely psychosomatic reaction; yet another neurosis to add to his growing collection.

He stepped out of his jeans and Calvin Kleins™ just as Ruby placed her thumbs in the hems of her stocking top. "Leave them on," he ordered. "I want to take them off."

Naked apart from her long, slim legs clad in those stockings, Ruby hitched over on the bedspread, half rolling so she lay one on side facing him, resting her head on her hand, watching him, her face sombre and unreadable as Sam moved to lay down next to her, so they were facing each other. Lifting his hand, Sam brushed back her hair, then let the strands wrap around his fingers as he moved to press their bodies together and kissed her.

He took his time, making himself wait, building the anticipation of what he wanted, and concentrated on enjoying her. Ruby's helpless and wanton response to his first ever going down on her had been a surprise to him; she had given him head several times, and it was always amazing, but she had always been controlled in her actions and bizarrely for such an intimate act, slightly unapproachable, and she had never given him any indication she wanted the favour returned. But he _liked _enjoying a woman that way, almost as much as the actual act of penetrating her, and Ruby's overwhelming response meant it was definitely on the menu to stay.

As she quivered from the aftershocks of orgasm from him doing just that, he licked the liquid honey of her from his lips as he moved over her, entering her slowly to savour taking her; beneath him Ruby drew up her knees so her legs, now bare of those stockings, cradled his hips between her own thighs. He braced himself over her. "_Ruby_…"

She removed her left hand from his hair and uncurled the fingers, her eyes pure jet-black, but Sam _wanted _them like that, because being too caught up in the moment to control her eye-colour showed she was feeling instead of thinking. _Thinking_ Ruby ordered him about_, feeling_ Ruby was his to command. A small flick-knife floated out of her holdall over onto her waiting palm, and with her other hand, she picked it up, and made a tiny shallow incision – no more than a quarter-inch cut – at her left wrist, where the veins were near the surface.

"Careful…" she whispered with an underlying urgency, as if she wanted him to change his mind, but paradoxically also didn't.

Sam slid his fingers around her wrist and brought it to his mouth, licking the tiny droplets that trickled from the wound. Once again he felt like he'd swallowed a mouthful of sherbet candy, but now prepared, he concentrated on harnessing and controlling the wild euphoric surge that bubbled and seethed and thundered through every tiniest capillary of his body, channelling that energy into his own sexual delight – and Ruby's, hearing her gasp and moan in reaction. He revelled in feeling the delicious sweetness of every tiniest contraction of her inner muscles around his thick, steely shaft, every micro-ripple as he held her there at her peak of ecstasy, not yet, not yet…

The sheer bliss became too potent to be denied. She came again and again squeezing around him tight and hot as Sam surged into her over and over in hedonistic lust, thrusting and pounding and pumping, until he came close to blacking out _again _from the sheer pressure of his release, riding her hard like a wild stallion on a mare as Ruby screamed his name, her nails raking in glorious pain against the skin of his back as she bucked and thrust her own pelvis instinctively upwards from the sheer force of her climaxes, making her take every inch of him, spearing his cock to the hilt inside her, impaling her fiercely, until his own climax soared through him in maelstrom that left him gasping and shaking _again_. Never mind killing Lillith, he'd better concentrate on surviving his own orgasms first.

He moved slightly to one side so he didn't squash her, but that was his only concession; he nuzzled her hair as he got his breathing back under control, making a pleased murmur when Ruby, not objecting to his weight on top of her, or his still being in her, began to stroke his back with careful, delicate motions.

He could feel a faint 'hot' tingling, where his sweat stung the scrape marks of her nails. Fortunately they were shallow as Ruby's nails were habitually trimmed practically short. She was a hunter, not a socialite – her reaction when he'd explained 'fake nail treatments' had been an eye-roll of disgust and the opinion that 21st Century women were too pampered by half; in view of the world she'd grown up in, she definitely had a point. He raised his head to look at her with somnolent sexual satisfaction, grinning when she wrinkled her nose at him coquettishly, before relaxing against the warm, soft, snugly pillow she was beneath him, building his 'second wind'.

Ruby used her mind to increase the room's heating thermostat a little so they wouldn't notice any residual chill from being on top of the bed. They certainly weren't going to spend any time tonight _in _it. Sam was still inside her, and relaxed right now, but he was young and virile, he would soon quicken again and his not withdrawing from her body indicated his intentions; they wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.

And as he used her as a living pillow, she allowed herself a minute to just _experience_ combing his hair through her fingers, and permitted herself just for a few moments to pretend that this was real, because it was _too easy_ to do. Because as a large man in a land of smaller men, with his shaggy sandy hair and bright blue eyes and pig-headed jaw line and his big hands with their short blunt nails and calloused and nicked fingers – workman's hands, not soft, podgy moist efforts like that lecher Piven – he was so, so much like _another _Sam, _the _Sam – a big man in a land of men who were little in more ways than one, often insolently treated by fools who equated 'big' with 'dumb'.

He'd shown no fear of her temper or trepidation over the gossip told about her and laughed at her sharp tongue, until the day he'd tumbled her in his forge, vigorous as the war stallions he shod and in the aftermath she had found herself caged in sinewy arms against a rock-solid but reassuring chest as she realised with a sense of shock that, for the first time in her life, she was actually being _cuddled_ and in that realisation became utterly and completely _his_ – the bass chuckle rumbling from that chest as he rubbed his chin lightly against the top of her hair had sent seismic shockwaves through her disarrayed emotions – for the first time in her life she was the nonplussed one, the one adrift who had no idea what she should say, or think, or feel or do…

"_What a wondrous firebrand you are," he chuckled, stroking those long, talented fingers that had just been stroking over her, stroking within her, gently through the riotous curls of her unbound, burnished copper hair – he had had it cascading down immediately, as if knowing the way she wound it tight and flat to her head under her bonnet was another way she used to minimise attention to herself, and he was having none of it, "Hair as fiery as your passion, and exactly the colour of my smelting furnace's flame."_

"_Then maybe __**you **__should be ginger," she retorted waspishly, trying to regain equilibrium and control, wriggling futilely against the bands of his arms – it was like trying to move a stuck oxen cart with a feather. _

"_Copper," he corrected, "You are a treasure. All little and ruddy and beautiful, but with sharp edges for the unwary – you are just like my wonderful Ruby."_

_A raging jealousy unlike anything she had ever experienced ripped through her, alongside a howling inner anguish that he was just another feckless, faithless male. "Who's Ruby?" Not that I care she's welcome to him the silly trusting cow –_

"_My beautiful Ruby?" he smirked at her. "Oh she's just like you, tiny and bright and fiery. You'll really like her. Would you like to meet her?"_

_No she did not want to meet perfect little Ruby and if he didn't stop pointing out her diminutive stature she was going to turn him in a **toad** right now – in fact, she was going to turn him into toad anyway and –_

_He reached into his thick leather jerkin and brought out something from some inner pocket, rolling it slightly in his palm. It was very small – half the size of a garden pea at the most – and round, but it glowed brightly from the hearth fire and the bright afternoon sunlight coming into the forge. A little **ruby** – expertly cut and polished._

_For a moment she couldn't speak for sheer relief, then her ire sparked – he had deliberately made her think - !_

"_Halford gave it to me in payment." He said blandly, with a knowing smirk at her flushed face._

_She sniffed derisively, refusing to give him the satisfaction; she disliked Halford on principle. Not because the conceited, rotund little man was in any way evil, but because his great wealth meant **he** got away with his eccentricities, whilst **she **was followed by muttered gossip and whispers of witch – which was true – and whore – which wasn't, not least of which by that hypocrite lecher of a priest who uttered veiled denunciations of sluttish strumpets from the pulpit, because she brazenly sashayed into church every Sunday and sat right on down with the decent folks. Maybe one day she would stand up in the midst of the congregation like it said in the Good Book and tell them all about their dirty old clergyman hated her because she had refused to let him under her skirts; if they knew he was responsible for more than one swollen belly amongst the local girls, hah – not to mention that the charity he spent the alms monies on was himself, or that he guzzled the communion wine like it was water!_

"…_I think…my little gem for my little gem."_

_For a moment she was speechless, but… "I have nowhere for safekeeping. People would always be trying to steal it," she told him, unaware of the word-slip revealing her confidence in her own powers to thwart such thieves._

_He grinned at her in a manner that made her instantly suspicious. "We could always follow the legend of the Pure Pearls."_

"_The what?"_

"_Halford allows me to browse his library – his ancestors travelled to many wondrous lands in the Orient and East, there are many books of times and wonders past, even books on the arts of love-craft between a man and maiden," he told her, slyly._

_And he had obviously read them - enough to master her completely a few minutes ago. "What has that got to do with pearls?" she challenged, trying to be stern and repressive, and failing at both._

_It didn't have any apparent effect on his good humour. "Ah, a young woman was very pretty and clever, but very poor; she had nothing except two very small, very rare black pearls handed down from generation to generation, but she knew sooner or later someone would rob her of them; so when she was forced to flee her village because of two fighting warlords, she took the pearls with her and hid them. When the group she was with was accosted by the victorious warlord, and rumours about her family's treasure had her summoned before him, she had no pearls on her or with her, and told him the pearls were magic – they were invisible to all men, and could only be seen by women who were pure of heart as well as body, and so she escaped with her treasures."_

"_She must have used magic, or the family lost the pearls long before," she pointed out with perverse argumentativeness, determined not to be so easily blandished. "And **I** have nowhere secure enough to hide it and nowhere on me that I would dare keep it either."_

"_You don't," he conceded gravely and then kissed her tenderly and thoroughly and for a moment she forgot all about the silly little jewel, "and neither did she, so she hid them…in her…" his kiss deepened as she felt his hand beneath her skirts, and then his finger and thumb slipped teasingly into her with something small and hard and cool, and then she was beneath him and he was thrusting authoritatively with no teasing into her with something large and hard and hot and oh he used his huge, fabulous sex to work that tiny stone back and forth within her so her world shattered into a billion pieces of pure, soaring bliss …_

And as Sam stirred against her and within her, she steeled herself and hardened her heart against her yearning folly, because this was just _too hard_ to do. Because with his principles and his clinging to 'right' and 'wrong' instead surrendering to the false virtue of 'values' and his fierce determination to help people and fight against things that hurt innocents, he was he was so, so much like _another _Sam, _the _Sam – and she simply could not endure the pain again. She had been consumed by despair when she knew he had learned she _was _a witch, hurriedly packing her essential belongings in the sealskin bundle, a prized payment from a grateful client, only to look up to find him standing in her doorway, his face not angry or scornful, but still terrifyingly stern and sombre…

"…_my little ruby, I don't revile you, and I won't drag you to be burned…I don't hate you or condemn you, and I'm not angry with you…"_

_Such relief, such hope she almost collapsed with dizziness from the rush of it –_

"…_what I am is **disappointed **in you."_

…_those three little words…that had ripped her living heart out of her chest._

"…_you are so gifted, you have so much wit and bravery and determination. Yet you throw it away like pearls before swine at the cloven hooves of some strutting demon who doesn't even know or care **you **exist other than as one of myriads of pawns. I cannot control you, or decide for you what to do. I am going to the forge. You know where to find me…_"

Disappointed in you…and she had _hesitated_, stopped by her stupid, stupid pride and chained by her stupid, stupid fears that maybe he hadn't meant it? Maybe he was only luring her into town to be beaten and whipped, or to be driven out with cudgels and pitchforks. Maybe he would still cast her aside because she was in her third decade and his seed had still put no child in her belly and when her face wrinkled and her copper locks went grey and her breasts sagged and weren't pert…

And she had lost everything. She consciously unclenched her jaw, shoving it all back, deep inside, down and down. Yellow-eyed Azazel, her demon master, not a monstrous fool but a foolish monster, who had laughed at her anguish and dismissed her loss as nothing. Like all tyrants he viewed all other beings as either tools to be used or obstacles to be destroyed, so completely egocentric that he was _incapable _of comprehending that his grand scheme was as nothing to her as she was nothing to him, and giggling Lillith, oblivious in her Lucifer-fangirl babbling that she had let slip Ruby's means of escape, of real, actual freedom, of finally being safe, so consumed with her own cleverness.

Nor was _this _Sam free of blame. She had never lied, because she had never _had _to. She had always made it clear her sole aim and only goal was Lillith's death, and neither he nor his brother had ever cared enough to push, to necessitate her using one of her carefully constructed and 'verifiable' explanations. Over the last year both had been happy to use her and discard – or in Dean's case – destroy her as disposable; now Sam was happy to have the sex, but even at this point wasn't bothered enough to press her further. Neither had ever showed any concern about the host, poor brave Kat; Ruby had been unprepared for when Lillith had attacked her and driven Ruby out, possessing and killing her to make it 'look good' – for that grief alone Ruby would never forgive Lillith.

_I told Azazel, I could not bear my beloved to be disappointed in me, and he didn't take me seriously. I told Lillith I wasn't cut out to be a minion, and she didn't take me seriously. I told you, Sam, I **only care **about killing Lillith and you don't take me seriously enough to stop playing too close to the big bonfire_…

And the simple truth was she had no choice – she had come too far, worked too long. She would only be free once Lillith was dead, and Sam had to be the instrument of that. She genuinely regretted Dean's death – despite the danger he posed as the only creature, human or demon, who had ever seemed to recognise even if only instinctually, that she was working to _her agenda_ and nobody else's. If he had been able to break the deal, Sam wouldn't be left alone, like he would be after…

_No choice_. Dean's killing of Azazel had opened up an opportunity she could not let slip through her fingers with the chance to also remove Lillith. Instigating sex with Sam was a calculated risk, but one that should protect her in the future now he had discovered how good her blood made him feel. The placebo effect would break down his self-imposed mental blocks, but once he grew powerful enough to kill her kind with his mind – when he killed Lillith and her 'betrayal' was revealed, the sexual tie should be enough to make him so enraged he lacked the mental control to kill her mentally and would resort to the dagger she'd given him – that she'd _forged_ for that purpose – to 'end' her life in an undeniable way…

She responded to his kiss with a fervour that surprised him but which he reciprocated eagerly, his hands roaming her body as he took her to the heights of pleasure once more, and she held nothing back for his satisfaction, because _I'm sorry, Sam. If there were any other way than for Lucifer to have to rise, for me to be able to give you back Dean, I would…but if I lose you too, I couldn't endure it, because I care more about you than I can afford to, because **he** was disappointed in me, and I won't be that disappointment for a moment longer than I have to…I'm sorry the plan is going to hurt you, the real plan, my plan, not what Lillith thinks is the plan, and I'm sorry that even if you survive what's coming, you'll spend your life alone, without Dean. I'm sorry, but just like you, I'm not sorry enough to care enough to stop…_

© 2009 The Cat's Whiskers

Author's Note: This story is relevant to my story _Having A Ball, _but can be read as a standalone story. This story _Give and Take _is also a 'prequel' to my story _The Rolling Stones_, which will be posted shortly. _The Rolling Stones_ takes place post-Season 4 and is not tied in to _Having a Ball_, which is set first half of Season 4 (pre-Sex and Violence).

**SEASON FOUR SPOILER ALERT! SEASON 4 SPOILER ALERT!**

I hope people find a bit of 'where Ruby's coming from' adds to the story. I know some fans liked Katie Cassidy's Ruby over Genevieve Cortese's Ruby and vice versa, and I hope my back story is realistic enough that both could 'play it' believably.

For me personally, Ruby over Seasons 3-4 was too much like Dean – too smart, resourceful, cunning and adaptable – to be one of Lucifer's vapid fangirl 'sheep' or Lillith's unquestioningly obedient patsy.

Her previous actions and attitude seemed inconsistent with Ruby going all soppy and girlie after Sam broke the final seal and Lillith was killed. I couldn't help but remember that Ruby had given Sam the special knife in the first place, or that she had never really had to lie to the Winchester brothers about her aim (kill Lillith) because they hadn't cared enough to demand real answers.

She knew Dean was breaking in a) with murderous intent and b) with the knife; she didn't run even though she knew Sam was devastated and enraged by her betrayal and tricking him into breaking the final seal. She even threw away her best leverage by admitting to Sam, as Dean was B&E, that her blood was physically little more than a placebo and his powers had always been his to command if only he had believed in himself to make them work. Dean was still under the impression Sam was addicted to her blood, and he would never have risked Sam's life by killing Ruby no matter the provocation if she had claimed instead that Sam would die if he went through a forced, fast withdrawal.

That scene seemed to me that either Ruby had taken stupid pills, or was deliberately letting Dean get to her, literally – with Azazel and Alistair dead, (some of) the angels just as corrupt as the downstairs contingent and the fact that Lillith was going to predecease her, what better time for Ruby to bring a plan to escape hell and her own servitude to fruition? What more impeccable audience to fake your own death in front of than Sam the super-psychic and Lucifer himself, especially if you know that 'World War III' is inevitable and you want no part of it – I also remembered that it was Ruby who told Sam that when it came to Godzilla (angels) versus Mothra (demons) the best thing was to get out of the way.


End file.
